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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (129618)	1/29/2010 2:05:49 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541957

It is an issue for me. Its an important issue for you. It could be argued that its generally an important issue. But importance isn't the same as relevance. Its not very relevant to the USSC decision. The only reason corporations are deemed to have this apply to them is because of the prior decisions involving corporate personhood That isn't true. It doesn't matter whether they are treated as persons or not. The 1st amendment doesn't mention persons (or corporations). It says - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It doesn't say ""Congress shall make no law...for persons". Passing a law forbidding corporate paid political adds (or allowing regulatory bodies to do so) is passing a law abridging the freedom of speech. And it would remain such even if the principle of corporate person-hood had never been invented, or was rejected and removed from every statue that contained it, and/or every judicial decision that supported it was overturned, and/or an amendment to the constitution rejected it. or the right of the people peaceably to assemble 1 - It doesn't say "abridging the freedom of speech for people". That's a different clause (or two clauses since "people" appears to apply to "to petition the government..." as well), that doesn't modify the other ones. The "congress shall pass no law" part applies to all the other examples, but each example doesn't modify the other examples. For example "or the right of the people peaceably to assemble" doesn't mean that the right of the free press is limited to people, or that even if the doctrine of corporate person hood was decisively rejected, that the New York Times would not have freedom of the press. 2 - Its "congress shall pass no law", not "congress shall pass no law...applied to people", with the possible exception of the freedom of assembly, and petition for grievances clauses. Its an outright prohibition of the law. People isn't an issue for anything before the "peacefully assemble" clause. 3 - People work in and own corporations. Corporations are people acting collectively. A corporate paid add would be paid for by a collection of people, and the process would be handled by actual people. Even if corporations are not people the rights of the corporations are the rights of people.